To the parents I judged prior to knowing how challenging it can be, I apologize!
I can admit it, after getting married but prior to having
children, I often judged parents for their parenting choices. I said things like, “I won’t be one of those
mom’s that allows work to distract me from play time at home nor will I over
use screen time to entertain!” I said
similar things about my marriage like, “We will never go to bed angry!” The reality all parents know is that once the
lack of sleep, rushing to get to school on time, constant runny noses, needing
to be in two places at once so we don’t miss soccer practice and swim team sets
in, it’s often difficult to always make the best choices. A reset is needed from time to time to help
us keep on track. Two forces that help
me reset are forgiveness and leadership.
Forgiveness is a powerful force. At times you need to be the one to forgive as
well as the one receiving the forgiveness.
Forgiving my husband for forgetting to tell me about the birthday party
happening tomorrow that he verbally RSVP’d to last month can be difficult. Ok, it can be nearly impossible! It forced me to scramble to purchase a
last-minute birthday gift and had to rearrange a meeting a work. The key for me is putting myself in his
shoes. You see, my husband is a firefighter. That comes with long sleepless nights and
heartbreaking medical calls. From time
to time his inability to focus on communicating some details is understandable,
right? I have to do the same thing with
the children. When my son is having a
meltdown because he can’t find that one tiny lego piece he needs to complete a
creation he’s been diligently working on is another test of my ability to
forgive. I was in the middle of making
dinner and had a long day at work. I try
to think of the most generous reason for this meltdown such as maybe he is hungry,
after all, it was me that was late getting dinner on the table. Maybe he is tired since we did get to bed
about 15 minutes past bedtime last night.
By bestowing forgiveness on them I hope to breed an environment where
they can find a way to do the same for me when I need it.
That brings us to leadership. The key here is remembering that the children
are little sponges watching and listening to everything we are doing and
saying. Was I being patient with and polite to the waiter at dinner? Did I
say please or thank you to the kids when I asked them to do something? Leading by example can be all-consuming but
well worth the effort particularly when it comes to healthy habits and character
building. If we are not exercising,
eating healthy foods or being patient how do we expect the children to do the
same? This rule is in full effect at our
dinner table. We all eat the same meal
and that sometimes means it’s not my favorite entrée or my husband’s favorite
side item but if we expect our children to eat it than we need to as well. Same goes for exercise! We make a point to head to the gym together
and occasionally play a bit of basketball in the front yard or soccer in the
back. The children see us drink lots of
water and choose a healthy snack when we are hungry. We expect them to do the same.
To the parents I judged prior to knowing how challenging it
can be, I apologize! We are in this
together my fellow parents and lots of reminders for each other on how we can
dig a bit deeper to make the best choices we can under the circumstances will
only make our little humans that much more capable to handle their own
challenges when they become adults.
Give Garden
Administrator
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